Nashville, Tenn. – Cities simmered with triple-digit temperatures Monday, toppling records in a heat wave blamed for deaths in at least five states. Thermometers topped 100 degrees in Alabama, Arkansas, Texas, Nebraska, Kansas and Tennessee, where Memphis hit a record 105 degrees, the National Weather Service said.
Monday was the fourth consecutive day of triple-digit highs in Memphis, where the heat was blamed for at least three deaths since Wednesday, health authorities said.
A truck driver who was working on his rig at a gas station when he collapsed and died Monday was among the three heat-related deaths in Arkansas, Pulaski County coroner Mark Malcolm said.
Missouri and Kentucky have each reported one heat-related death, while across the state line in Illinois officials blamed three deaths since Thursday on the heat.
Steve Nonn, the coroner in Madison County, Ill., said the deaths illustrate the importance of checking on neighbors, especially the vulnerable elderly.
“This is a time of year when it is important to be a busybody, knock on a door and ask, ‘Are you OK?”‘ Nonn said. “It is an act of nosiness that just may save someone’s life.”
TAMPA, Fla.
Foul play not suspected in wrestler’s death
Former pro wrestling champion Brian “Crush” Adams died Monday after being found unconscious in his home. He was 44.
He showed no visible signs of injury, and foul play was not suspected, said police spokeswoman Janelle McGregor. Authorities were awaiting autopsy results.
Adams’ wife found her husband not breathing and called 911. He was later pronounced dead, McGregor said.
Adams’ death comes less than two months after pro wrestler Chris Benoit killed his wife and son before hanging himself in his Georgia home.
MOUNT LAUREL, N.J.
TLC will telecast Miss America Pageant
The Miss America Pageant has a new home. The 86-year- old beauty competition, which lost its TV deal with Country Music Television in March, said Monday that it had signed a new agreement with cable channel TLC through 2010.
TLC will telecast the next Miss America show Jan. 26 from Las Vegas and will produce a reality series that, it said, will introduce viewers to “52 of the country’s smartest and most beautiful women as they prepare for a competition they’ve dreamed of their entire lives.”
GREEN BAY, Wis.
Teens enter pleas in Columbine-type plot
Three teens accused of helping plan a Columbine-like attack at a high school pleaded no contest Monday in separate plea agreements.
William Cornell, Shawn Sturtz and Bradley Netwal were accused of making bombs and collecting guns to carry out the attack at their Wisconsin school. They were arrested last fall after a fourth teen, who was not charged, told an associate principal at Green Bay’s East High School about the plot.
Brown County District Attorney John Zakowski said Monday that the motive behind the plot was more complicated than bullying and harassment. Issues with girlfriends, “talk of suicide” and depression among the teens played roles, he said.
Police said Cornell and Sturtz had long been fascinated by the April 1999 Columbine massacre.
CHICAGO
Life-mask scans show Lincoln’s face lopsided
Artists, sculptors and photographers knew Abraham Lincoln’s face had a good side. Now, it’s confirmed by science.
Laser scans of two life masks, made from plaster casts of Lincoln’s face, reveal the 16th president’s unusual degree of facial asymmetry, a new study says. The left side of Lincoln’s face was much smaller than his right.
When Lincoln was a boy, he was kicked in the head by a horse. Laser scans can’t settle whether the kick or a developmental defect – or neither – contributed to Lincoln’s lopsided face, said Dr. Ronald Fishman, who led the study in this month’s Archives of Ophthalmology.
BEIJING
20 killed as bridge being built collapses
A 1,050-foot-long bridge under construction in central China collapsed Monday, killing at least 20 people and injuring 22.
Rescuers were searching for 46 people reported missing after the bridge being built over the Jiantuo River in Hunan Province collapsed, the official Xinhua News Agency said today.
